Let’s catch up on where the Browns are — and where they aren’t — about five days ahead of the start of the March 13 league year …

That the Browns released Jamie Collins on Wednesday doesn’t register as a surprise. That it barely moves the needle at all says a lot about the splash plays that Collins didn’t make.

It was a no-brainer move from a financial standpoint, and the only reason it was a little bit complicated is that linebacker has become the thinnest position on the team. Joe Schobert is headed into the final year of his rookie contract, and Christian Kirksey heads into 2019 in essentially the same spot Collins was in a year ago. The guarantees on the big contract Kirksey got from the previous regime pretty much expire after 2019.

In cutting Collins, the Browns save a little more than $9 million in cap space for this season. They take on a little more than $2 million in dead money rather than letting Collins make the...